


For Better or for Worse

by Kittycrackers (Calacious)



Category: General Hospital
Genre: Brain Injury, Community: cottoncandy_bingo, Hurt/Comfort, Intimacy, Jealousy, M/M, Same-Sex Marriage, Speedos, pervie doctor in passing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-23
Updated: 2012-09-23
Packaged: 2017-11-14 20:39:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/519289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calacious/pseuds/Kittycrackers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jason is going to kill Carly for giving Spinelli a pair of red Speedos as a gift for their honeymoon, just as soon as he and Spinelli return from their trip to Jamaica.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For Better or for Worse

**Author's Note:**

  * For [suerum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/suerum/gifts), [kuchyan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuchyan/gifts).



> This was supposed to be a fluffy crack!fic based on a conversation about jealous!Jason and Speedo!Spinelli. That did not happen, but I rather enjoy how this version of events turned out, and I hope others do as well.
> 
> Much thanks to kuchyan for all of her support and encouragement throughout the writing of this, and to suerum for inspiring (and encouraging) some of the 'crazy' writing ideas that pop into my head.

Jason was going to kill Carly, and it wasn’t going to be a fast, easy death for the woman he valued as one of his best friends. No, it was going to be a slow, excruciating death as was befitting the woman who’d transformed his man, his man, into little more than eye candy. 

Jealousy did not sit well with Jason, and the real kicker was that Spinelli was completely oblivious to the attention – male and female alike – that he was getting from the gawkers at Secrets St. James Montego Bay’s outdoor pool. The trip to Jamaica had been a gift from Diane – “…two weeks of honeymoon bliss without the threat of flying bullets and international murder mysteries… “(a reference to Spinelli’s latest case that had nearly cost the young sleuth his life). 

With his wet skin glistening in the sun, the beginnings of a tan, and the red speedo – Carly’s honeymoon gift for them – that melded perfectly to all of Spinelli’s curves, he made quite the picture. A picture that Jason didn’t want to share with anyone else.

He wanted to grab one of the towels, a fluffy white affair, and wrap it around Spinelli and carry him off to their room, but Spinelli was smiling and laughing and having fun. There’d been a long time – a month of sitting beside the comatose man’s bed, and then three months of fighting with nurses and physical therapists while Spinelli had to relearn how to do the simplest of things from brushing his teeth to eating – when Jason had feared that Spinelli would never experience any of those things again – carefree happiness, joy, love. 

He wanted to be content to simply watch Spinelli swim, but if one more man or woman winked at the younger man or pinched him on the ass, causing Spinelli’s face to blush an attractive rosy, pink, Jason was not going to be responsible for whatever he did to him or her. Jason had waited long and hard to spend this time with his husband. 

He should’ve insisted that they leave on their honeymoon the night they’d spoken their vows in the Metro Court six months ago, but Spinelli had assured him that he only had to pop into the office and tie up a few loose ends on his latest case – he’d only be a few minutes. Jason had capitulated, and Spinelli had been shot. 

It was a decision that Jason regretted every morning he woke up and had to help Spinelli ‘remember’ how to do tasks which most people took for granted. He still had not mastered the art of tying shoelaces. His partner from the detective agency, Sam, had bought him several pairs of loafers, but Spinelli was stubborn and adamant that he would learn how to tie his shoelaces. Jason, whose patience was limited at the best of times, felt his fingers itch to help his lover, and had to hold off until Spinelli gave up – face red from shame and frustration – and let Jason do it for him. 

Jason was brought back to the present – a sudden rush of blood to his groin – when Spinelli’s head broke the surface of the water as he pulled his body up out of the pool with his arms. Chest muscles, honed by months of therapy, rippled, and Jason caught movement out of the corner of his eye as a man, younger than himself, hurried to ‘help’ Spinelli the rest of the way out of the pool. Jason stood and elbowed the other man out of the way, not even batting an eyelash when the man fell, landing hard on his knees. 

The frown that mars Spinelli’s features reminds Jason of how black and white Spinelli sees things nowadays. There is no shade of gray, thanks to the brain injury that nearly killed the younger man, and Jason knows that he will need to apologize to the other man, but that can wait until after he’s hoisted Spinelli out of the water and staked his claim on the younger man. Ah, that is, toweled him off and kissed him soundly (in front of all of the oglers). 

“Je…Jason?” Spinelli titled his head to the side once Jason got him free of the water and draped the towel over his shoulders. “Wh…wh…what’s wr, wr, wrong?” Spinelli’s face flushed red as he struggled to get the words out. He no longer called Jason Stone Cold (it was too hard for him to get out), something that Jason found he missed fiercely. 

“Nothing Spinelli,” Jason said, blushing, and turning away from Spinelli’s inquisitive gaze. 

People, who didn’t know Spinelli before his injury, thought that he was mildly retarded. But Jason thought that if they only looked into his eyes, they would see that Spinelli’s bore right into the very soul and rendered bone from marrow to ferret out the truth. Spinelli was still as mentally sharp as he was before a bullet had been lodged into his brain. He just had a speech impediment and it took him longer to do some things than it used to, and there were some things he’d never be able to do again – like drive and he would be at risk of seizures which responded poorly to medication for the rest of his life. Jason was constantly on the alert for circumstances which might induce one of the terrifying seizures, and as a result, he tended to watch Spinelli like a hawk, which didn’t sit well with the independent, spirited, young man. 

“Je,” Spinelli swallowed and took a deep breath, and Jason knew that the younger man was trying to remember what it was that his speech therapist had told him to do when his words got stuck, “Jason, you hu, hurt th, th, th, that man.”

“I,” Jason blushed and hung his head, feeling a little like a little kid who was being scolded. “I wanted to help you out of the pool,” he mumbled, his eyes fixed on the ground. He knew that he sounded ridiculous, that Spinelli, whose red speedo was, if possible, clinging even more snugly to his ass and showcasing the younger man’s dick, was probably looking at him as though he’d lost his mind.

Jason swallowed and looked up into his lover’s eyes, mesmerized by the spark of lust he caught within the green pools of jade. The flush that now covered the entirety of Spinelli’s body was not merely due to his frustration over stuttering.

“A, and into bed?” Spinelli asked, raising an eyebrow. His lips quirked upward, and he shrugged out of the towel, as though to move around Jason and slip back into the pool.

Jason caught Spinelli’s forearm, fingers biting lightly into the muscle-toned flesh. It wasn’t enough to bruise, but it was enough to cause the man whom Jason had elbowed out of the way to come to Spinelli’s rescue.

“Hey, let him go, man,” the blonde-haired man said, and then he pushed Jason, and turned to Spinelli, placing an arm across his shoulder. Spinelli flashed Jason a quick, playful grin that bordered on devious as the younger man prattled on. “Are you okay? Did he hurt you? You need any help? You can come back to my room with me, and we’ll…”

“I…I’m f, fine,” Spinelli said, backing out of the man’s embrace. “He, he’s m, my pa, partner.”

“That doesn’t give him the right to abuse you,” the man said, looking from Jason to Spinelli.

“He’s not a, abusing me,” Spinelli said. 

Spinelli was trembling slightly, but it wasn’t from the cool afternoon air on his wet skin, and that’s when Jason knew that he needed to get Spinelli out of there, away from the pool, away from the man who, even in his concern for Spinelli, clearly had only one thing on his mind. Away from all of the prying eyes and the blazing sun which was high in the bright, blue sky. 

“Hey man, are you alright?” Spinelli’s would-be champion moved toward Spinelli who inched out of his reach and to Jason’s side.

Spinelli wrapped an arm around Jason’s waist, possessively, and jutted his chin out. Jason shook his head. Even with an impending seizure, Spinelli was doing what he could to clear Jason’s image in the mind of a perfect stranger. 

“He’s mine,” Spinelli said, “and, I, I’m his. He does, doesn’t hu, hurt me. We’re ju, just ru, ru, role pl,pl, playing.”

“Sorry man, my bad,” the man said, spreading his hands out and backing away from them.

Spinelli nudged Jason in the ribs, and groaning, Jason shouted out a gruff, “Sorry for tripping you,” to the man’s retreating back. The man raised a hand in the air, and waved off the apology. 

Spinelli chuckled and kissed Jason on the cheek. His trembling had increased, and Jason wanted to pick the younger man up and carry him back to their room – all the way on the other side of the large, bordering on Olympic-sized pool – but he knew that Spinelli would protest the move, and that, even if he started seizing right there in the pool area, he’d rather that than be seen as weak in the eyes of the onlookers.

“S…Sorry,” Spinelli said. 

“Let me carry you?” Jason tightened his grip on Spinelli, whispering his request into his lover’s ear, even as he ushered him toward their room. 

A slight shake of the head indicated to Jason that Spinelli could no longer speak, and that the seizure was imminent. His medication was in the room, sitting on the nightstand, nestled between painkillers for the intense headaches that sometimes robbed Spinelli of sight and speech, and Jason’s bottles of vitamins. 

Spinelli clutched Jason’s arm just once, fingers fluttering over his skin like the wings of a butterfly, before his knees buckled and his eyes rolled to the back of his head. He stiffened in Jason’s arms, and, oblivious to those who’d stopped to stare, Jason laid Spinelli on the ground, positioning him on his side so that, if he threw up, he wouldn’t aspirate any of the vomit. 

Jason counted the seconds, ticking them off mentally by the thousandths, and starting over each time a minute was reached. Neither of them had a watch, or a cellphone, on them. At the three minute mark, Spinelli’s body went slack and the tremors ceased thirty seconds later. Knowing that Spinelli would be embarrassed, but seeing nothing for it, Jason plucked Spinelli up off the wet ground and tucked him to his chest. 

A man stopped him with a hand to his shoulder, and Jason turned a glare on the man. He just wanted to get Spinelli back to their room, clean him up, administer his medicine, and then let him sleep it off. Chances are that Spinelli wouldn’t even wake up until the next morning. 

The man pulled his hand off Jason’s shoulder, but was persistent. “I’m a doctor,” the man said, “if you’d like, I could check your partner over, make sure that he’s alright.”

Jason eyed the man carefully. The last thing he needed was to be taken by a charlatan. The man gave him an easy smile, and showed Jason an ID. Nodding, Jason led the way to their suite, and was relieved when the doctor declared that Spinelli was okay. 

He prescribed a day of rest, nothing more strenuous than simple activities, and recommended that they not leave the room, save for meals. Though he did indicate, with a suggestive wink, that they order room service, and have a lie in. 

When the doctor took his leave, promising to check in on them tomorrow afternoon, Jason clicked the lock into place and then sagged against the door. He slid down to the floor and just sat there for a few minutes, not really seeing anything, head resting on his arms.

He loved Spinelli, had since the day they first met, even though the younger man, then no older than what he’d classify as a boy in his early twenties, had driven him crazy with the way he talked, almost incessantly. Spinelli’s hero worship hadn’t sat well with him either. But, Jason loved him, and, because he loved him, he’d done everything he could to dissuade Spinelli from emulating him. And the younger man had, if anything, drawn nearer to him as a result. 

Jason was under no illusions, he was not a good, or nice, or even kind man, and no matter how often Spinelli’s words, and attentions drew those characteristics out in him, they were not there unless Spinelli was present. Or at least that’s how Jason saw it. Because Spinelli saw the good in him, and expected it of him, Jason supplied it. Jason lived up to Spinelli’s expectations of him, terrified that, one day, he might fall short of what Spinelli wanted and needed.

It was not too long after Sam had split – turning to John McBain for support instead of her husband – that Jason decided to declare his feelings to Spinelli. He half-hoped, half-feared, that Spinelli would reciprocate those feelings and agree to test out the rocky waters of male-male courtship with him. 

Still pining for Maxie, Spinelli had rejected his overtures, and Jason had poured himself into his work for Sonny, collapsing into an exhausted heap every night until a bullet to the shoulder landed him in the hospital. He’d woken to find Spinelli sleeping in the chair beside his bed, and that’s when their real relationship (as far as Jason was concerned) began. 

What started out as dates with flowers and chaste kisses, soon turned into nights of passionate lovemaking. It had been awkward at first, neither of them really knew exactly what it was they were supposed to be doing, or if they were doing ‘it’ right, but Jason figured that it didn’t matter as long as they both enjoyed it. Literature, introduced to them by Johnny and Ethan (and who would’ve thought those two would get together?), proved to be both humorous and helpful. 

He hadn’t planned to propose to Spinelli. Hadn’t even bought a ring for the occasion. The words just came tumbling out of his mouth one night. Spinelli’s head was pillowed on his chest, and Jason was tracing the younger man’s lips with an index finger, kissing a lazy trail down the side of Spinelli’s neck, and enjoying the taste of salty, sweet sweat that had beaded in the hollow of Spinelli’s neck.

“Marry me Spinelli,” he’d said, the words surprising him just as much as they’d surprised Spinelli.

Spinelli’s, “Yes,” spoken quietly after a brief pause, had caused Jason’s heart to soar.

Looking back, Jason wondered if all of this was his fault – the stuttering, the seizures, Spinelli’s inability to perform simple tasks that involve fine motor skills... He thought that, maybe, if he hadn’t gotten involved with Spinelli in something more than a business relationship, the younger man might never have been shot. He might have remained whole, unblemished, and completely out of Jason’s reach.

Sighing, Jason stretched his arms up over his head, scrubbed a hand over his face and then stood, walking over to the bed. He stared down at Spinelli, watching him as he slept – one arm had been flung over his eyes, the other off to his side. Though the man was smaller than him, Jason mused that he took up the whole bed, leaving just a niche beside him that Jason fit into. 

Spinelli was sleeping soundly, as he always did after he’d suffered from one of his seizures. There was no doubt in Jason’s mind that this one had been brought about by stress and overexertion. He should have watched Spinelli more carefully, should have called him out of the water well before the sun had grown hot overhead and he’d garnered looks from horny men and woman alike with his lithe, tanned body, secured tightly in those skimpy, ruby red Speedos.

Yawning, Jason contemplated how best to join his partner in bed. Usually, he was in bed before Spinelli, the younger man scooting in beside him, and Jason giving him full reign of the bed once he’d settled and Jason was tucked securely beside him. 

He was loath to wake Spinelli, not that he could rouse him right now if he wanted to. Spinelli always slept like the dead after he’d had a seizure. Seeing no other option, Jason picked up Spinelli’s right arm, marveling at how heavy it felt in sleep, and scooted in beside the smaller man who mumbled something incoherent in his sleep, but didn’t wake. 

Jason waited the space of several heartbeats before turning onto his side facing Spinelli. Needing some kind of physical contact with the man he loved, he wended an arm behind Spinelli’s back, even though he knew that, in the morning, he’d awake with a numb arm. He placed his other hand on Spinelli’s chest, letting the feel of the younger man’s heartbeat beneath the palm of his hand comfort and soothe him to sleep.

Jason woke when Spinelli did, half-hard with morning wood, and the doctor’s words that Spinelli was not to engage in any activity that was, ‘strenuous,’ echoed in his head. Groaning, Jason reclaimed his arm from beneath Spinelli and then rolled away from Spinelli, trying to hide his erection.

“Je, Jason,” Spinelli said around a yawn, “ca, can wu, we make lu, love?”

Turning to face Spinelli, Jason forced himself to smile. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Spinelli pouted, his bottom lip protruding and trembling slightly, his eyes going almost comically wide. “Bu, but I, it’s our hu, hu, honeymoon, a, and I, I wa, want t, to ma, make up f…for ye, yes, yesterday.”

Jason cupped Spinelli’s face in his hand, and rubbed a thumb over his cheek. “Spinelli, that wasn’t your fault, you have nothing to make up for. I love you.”

“B...but yu, you don…t lo…love th…this,” Spinelli said, pointing at his head and gesturing down the length of his body. “I…I ca…can’t e…ven sp, speak with…without st…st…stut…tering. A…and I c…c…can’t e…ven fl…flirt wi…without ha…having a sei…zure.” 

Spinelli pulled at his hair and expelled a breath in frustration. His face was red, and his chest was heaving, and Jason thought that, even like this, Spinelli was striking. Not that Spinelli’s looks had been what had attracted Jason to the younger man in the first place. It had been his heart – good, clean and innocent – and his endearing quirkiness which had first captured Jason’s interest. Now, though, as he looked at his husband, face flushed in vexation, all Jason could think of was how lucky he was to have Spinelli, and how he didn’t really deserve him, but he was much too selfish to let him go now that he had him right where he wanted him – at his side, in his bed.

“I love everything about you,” Jason said. 

And when the younger man frowned and shook his head in disbelief, Jason pulled Spinelli close and kissed his lips, the scar that traveled from his right temple and got lost somewhere along his hairline, and there he let his lips linger. “Everything,” he whispered. 

Spinelli shivered in his arms, and Jason groaned, because, this was their honeymoon, and Spinelli was warm, skin soft from his swim the day before, and Jason was hard as a rock. But, the doctor’s words came back to him, and he willed his libido to subside, because, as much as he wanted to show Spinelli how much he loved him – words were not really his strong suit – he didn’t want to overtax the younger man and be the cause of another seizure. 

“Sh…show me,” Spinelli challenged, and he wriggled in Jason’s arms, rubbing up against Jason’s hard cock. Spinelli’s erection was poking into Jason’s thigh, and, as much as he wanted to do the right thing by his lover, Jason couldn’t say, no. 

Besides, if Spinelli was asking this of him, who was he to question it? Spinelli needed to know that Jason trusted him, and that he was able to make decisions regarding his health on his own, without Jason second-guessing him. 

Jason growled low and straddled Spinelli’s hips, framing his lover’s face with his hands. “You sure you want me to show you just how much I love you?” 

In response, Spinelli spread his legs and rolled his hips. He reached down between them and tugged at his speedo, frowning when it wouldn’t immediately come free. Skintight, Jason remembered how well the suit had fit Spinelli and he grinned mischievously as he wrapped his fingers around Spinelli’s wrists and raised them up above his lover’s head.

“Uh uh, not so fast,” Jason said, releasing Spinelli’s hands, but forbidding the younger man from moving them below his waist with a quick shake of his head. 

With nothing else for him to do with his hands, Spinelli placed them on Jason’s bare hips – Jason slept in the nude – and rocked his hips upward, brushing his swelling cock against Jason’s, eliciting a moan from the both of them. 

Jason dipped his head down, pulling the covers over his head, even as Spinelli tore them off the bed, sending them cascading to the floor, before replacing his hand on Jason’s hip. 

“I…I wa…want t…to see the, the lu, look o…on your f…f, face,” Spinelli said when Jason raised an eyebrow in question.

Jason returned to his earlier task, bending his head down toward Spinelli’s groin. Using his teeth, letting them scrape lightly against his lover’s abs as he went, he gripped the offending red swathe of clothing and pulled at it. Spinelli lifted his hips to aid Jason, whose hands were now pressed against the mattress on either side of Spinelli’s waist, supporting him. 

Spinelli twisted and turned his hips, but Jason was tenacious, and at one point he forced Spinelli to lie still, with his hips just barely off the mattress. Jason’s teeth tore at the meddlesome garment until he’d managed to coax it down far enough to gain access to his lover’s engorged cock, and then he smiled and licked his lips, raising his head to look into Spinelli’s eyes, seeing his own lust mirrored in the dark emerald lochs. Jason’s dick jerked in response, but he wanted to see to Spinelli’s needs first.

Jason licked the underside of Spinelli’s erection with his tongue, relishing the briny taste of his lover and the hint of chlorine that accompanied it. Jason delighted in the way his lover writhed beneath him, and how Spinelli fell back against the mattress, tossing his head and bringing a fist to his mouth, biting it even as he gasped and panted, breathing out an unhalted, “Jason.”

Jason sucked at the head of Spinelli’s dick, rolling his tongue over it, getting lost in the sound of his husband’s arrhythmic breathing and now stilted, half-strangled exhalations that would have been words had Spinelli been able to speak coherently. 

Jason tasted pre-cum as Spinelli became wet in his mouth. It was salty and there was a suggestion of orange from the soda that Spinelli consumed on a regular basis (one of the few things that hadn’t changed about him since the brain injury was Spinelli’s love for orange soda and barbecue chips).  
When Jason took more of Spinelli in his mouth, teeth scraping along the sheath of skin, tongue circling the head, Spinelli bucked upward, and Jason readjusted his position so that he could swallow more of his lover. He knew that the tightness of his throat around Spinelli’s distended dick was doing its work when Spinelli’s fingers dug into his hair and he started pumping in and out of Jason’s mouth, rutting into him, grunting and moaning and crying his name over and over like a mantra as he drew near to his climax. 

Before Spinelli could come, Jason pulled away from his lover. Spinelli’s dick sprang out of his mouth with a distinctive pop. He ignored Spinelli’s growl of frustration, and crawled his way up the younger man, kissing him on the mouth, sharing the heady nectar that was Spinelli. 

“Je, Jason, I, I, I need,” Spinelli panted incoherently, hitting his head against the headboard lightly, not enough to cause any damage.

“What do you need?” Jason spoke the words against Spinelli’s lips, moving them like twin puppets, before darting his tongue between them and sampling, shoving his tongue deeper into his husband’s mouth until he had to break away so that they could both breathe.

“You,” Spinelli whispered shakily, “I, I ne…need you.”

“Where do you need me?” Jason asked. 

His heartbeat quickened in anticipation of the response. This had been something that he and Spinelli had done before the almost fatal gunshot had stolen six month from his and Spinelli’s lives. 

“I…in…side o…of me,” Spinelli said, and his breath came in tremulous stammers of vowel sounds when Jason reached for the lube – a gift from Johnny and Ethan – and applied a generous amount to his fingers before pushing them inside of Spinelli. Jason stopped every time he felt resistance, and waited until Spinelli’s body relaxed before going any further. 

It was a slow process, almost as slow as when they’d first begun sleeping together and had no idea what they were doing, where arms and legs and fingers and cocks were supposed to go. But, they’d figured it out, like first-time couples the world over did, and then they’d started to master the act, trying new things, and perfecting on the old.

Because it had been six months since they’d last engaged in anal sex (they had done plenty of other things once Spinelli had recovered sufficiently), Jason wanted to make sure that Spinelli would be as comfortable as possible, so he took his time stretching his lover. He ignored Spinelli’s protests, and his pleas to just, “…take me already,” in favor of doing it right, and making this time their best sexual encounter to date. It was their honeymoon, and Jason wanted it to be something that Spinelli and he would remember well into their old age. 

“Jason,” Spinelli whined, his teeth biting into Jason’s shoulder, and his fingers digging painfully into his hips, “pl…lease.”

Jason drew his fingers out of Spinelli, and hissed when applying the lube to his dick almost made him come. He steeled himself and waited though several baited breaths until his impending orgasm faded. He groaned when Spinelli wrapped his legs around his waist and pushed up against him in his haste.

Taking a deep breath, Jason penetrated his lover. He stopped when he met resistance, and reveled in the moment, letting the past six months of pain and hardship and waiting wash over him. Being inside of Spinelli like this, and pausing for his lover’s body to fit itself around him, made it well worth the wait. 

“I’ve missed this,” Jason said, biting his bottom lip as he pushed further into his lover.

“Me too,” Spinelli said, and he reached up, capturing Jason’s mouth with his in a leisurely kiss, gasping when Jason began to move inside of him, crying out when he pressed against Spinelli’s prostate. 

Sparks and fireworks did not accompany their lovemaking. It didn’t last for countless hours. But, when Jason’s orgasm shook him shortly after he felt Spinelli constrict around him from his own orgasm, it completely rocked his world and he rode his orgasm out on a wave of disjointed memories, collapsing atop his lover in a sweaty heap of limbs, his heart hammering in his chest.

Post coital drowsiness overtook him, and he rolled off of Spinelli, wiping the drying spunk from the both of them with an edge of their sheet. He reached for the covers that Spinelli had pitched on the floor and pulled them up and over them. 

Jason settled against Spinelli, letting the other man sprawl out across the bed – taking over both of their halves – Jason hadn’t had a ‘side of the bed’ since their whole love affair had begun, but he didn’t mind it one bit. What did he need a side for when he could have a Spinelli?

“That was,” Spinelli said around a yawn that traversed the length of his body, “amazing.”

“You’re amazing,” Jason said, grasping Spinelli’s hand in his own and kissing the inside of his lover’s wrist. 

Spinelli yawned again, and Jason could feel it traveling down into his toes. “Can we do that again?” Spinelli turned his head and blinked at him owlishly. “I mean, when we’ve re…rested?”

Spinelli’s stuttering was less apparent, and Jason filed it to the back of his mind to ask the speech therapist if it had anything to do with the sex. But, before that, before their return from the balmy clime of Jamaica to the cool gray of Port Charles, Jason vowed to test his hypothesis as often as he could on his eager lover. 

Their honeymoon hadn’t started out the way that Jason had envisioned it, but, from where he lay – Spinelli’s arm flung out across his chest, pinning him to the bed – Jason realized that he wouldn’t have it any other way. 

When he’d married Spinelli, he’d chosen to recite the traditional vows (aside from the word, wife). The words: “…for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health…” took on meaning for Jason just now, lying next to his lover after having made love for the first time in what felt like forever. 

At the time that he’d said them, they’d been untested, and while he’d sat by Spinelli’s hospital bed, waiting to see if he’d come back to him, they’d rung hollow in his head. But now he understood the sacrifice behind them, and how, without the worse, there’d be no better; without the sickness, no health. 

Sighing in contentment, Jason kissed Spinelli once more before closing his eyes. Something niggled at the back of his mind, though, and Jason opened his eyes. He wouldn’t be able to sleep until this one last thing had been done. He reached beneath the covers, and, shaking his head, he managed to tug the red Speedos the rest of the way off of Spinelli. He eyed them as a nemesis would his enemy and then pitched them into a far corner of the room. 

Then, reminding himself that the killing of Carly could wait, he let sleep claim him. He knew that, when he woke, Spinelli would still be there, and that they had twelve more days of honeymoon bliss ahead of them. If he was a man given to giddiness, Jason would’ve been over the moon. As it was, his heart skipped a couple of beats and he rested his head on Spinelli’s chest, letting the younger man’s heartbeat lull him to sleep again.


End file.
